


The Hay-Scale

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Citizen Kane (1941)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-26
Updated: 2009-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1890, Harvard undergrad Charlie Kane approaches an academic question in an all-too-characteristic manner.  Kane/Leland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hay-Scale

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thedeadparrot

 

 

"Hmm... 'If it is true that dissatisfaction has gained such headway as to disturb more and more the currents of our social and political life, that of itself makes the problem of our time.' How do you like that, Jedediah? Dissatisfaction is the problem of our time. What does that say about me?" 

Jed Leland looked up, again, from his hunched position over his desk, and eyed Charlie sprawled on his bed, flipping through his notes from one of his courses - sociology, by the sound of it. Charlie's note-taking was always idiosyncratic, to say the least. He wrote down only what interested him, and then brooded over it in quiet moments. Of course, this method didn't produce much in the way of academic success, but Charlie was sublimely indifferent to grades. "Harvard is more interested in my money than my scholarship," he had said once, "as evidenced by the fact that Harvard matriculated me in the first place, when the only decent grade I ever made at Exeter was in elocution." 

"If you really need to think out loud, you do have your own room, you know," Jed reminded him now. "A rather nice one, in the Yard, with gas laid on." He secretly savored the fact that Charlie chose to spend so much time in his cheap, drafty room on the Square, and so found oblique ways of referring to it. 

"I wasn't 'thinking out loud,' I was talking to you," Charlie replied unconcernedly, without looking up. "But no doubt I've interrupted your holy meditations. You and your Divinity course! You pour over that stuff like an actor memorizing his lines, and yet you've never found it sufficient protection against the most trifling temptation, as no one knows better than I." 

"How little you understand the consolations of liberal theology," Jed told him wryly. "Listen to this, it's one of Dr. Peabody's 'Prayers for today:'

'We whose lives are burdened by indecision pray for courage to face life as a great adventure. We are tempted to be satisfied with a life sheltered from risks. We distrust our dreams lest they prove illusory; we yield ourselves to the prudential way of life. Waken us, O God, from this lethargy of the spirit, and give us the will to live dangerously.'"

"A preacher wrote that, you say?" Charlie had looked up at last, his full attention for the moment on Jed. 

"Professor Peabody, Charlie, who teaches 'Ethics of the Social Question.' He's also the minister at the Unitarian Church."

"It sounds almost like Whitman," Charlie said, delighted. "'Up and down the roads going...'"

"'...North and South excursions making,'" Jed put in, smiling. 

"'No law less than ourselves owning...' I should try that on old Laughlin. 'Law' is his most cherished word in the English language, as though it hasn't already been proven that true economic 'laws' are as rare as hen's teeth. If I can read Toynbee, so can he." 

Professor Laughlin's course, "Investigation and Discussion of Practical Economic Questions," was the one currently inspiring most of Charlie's note-taking - mostly of the professor's many assertions that he wished to tear down. 

"You don't read books, you ransack them," Jed retorted, "swaggering through and snatching at whatever catches your eye. And you know very well that, so far as this school is concerned, the science of political economy consists of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, some more Mill, and maybe a little bit about the dangers of bimetallism." 

"Nothing that relies on the explanatory power of an 'invisible hand' is properly termed a 'science,' don't you think?" Restlessly Charlie got up and walked to the window, where he stood watching the negligible activity in the Square. 

"That old hay-scale," he said suddenly, "How long do you think it's been there? A hundred years?"

"Maybe two hundred," Jed answered, surprised by the turn in the conversation. "Why?"

"A survivor of the era of Adam Smith, in any case. Well, Jedediah, here's an 'investigation of a practical economic question' for you. Suppose I were to buy one of those new patent platform scales - what do you think it would cost, twelve hundred dollars? - I could put that scale out of business permanently."

Jed's heart gave an ugly, painful thump. "Charlie, you can't do that," he said automatically, and instantly regretted it as exactly the wrong thing to say. 

"The Hell I can't," Charlie said, his voice almost thrumming with exuberance as he warmed to his brilliant idea. "It's perfect. Nothing could better demonstrate Toynbee's argument concerning the need to differentiate between kinds of competition according to their effects." 

"Charlie, his point was that some forms of competition need to be checked," Jed reminded him, struggling to keep his voice reasonable. "Because competition is not always beneficial. Because...it can ruin people's lives." 

"Don't you think that's a point that deserves to be proven? In a conclusive, material fashion?"

"The proof's already there, if anyone chooses to see it," Jed interrupted bitterly. 

Charlie gave him a kindly look - an infuriating kindness, as he surely realized Jed was thinking of his father's suicide, and yet he was prepared to go on arguing his point anyway. 

"You yourself just observed how conservative Harvard is - regarding economic theory, if not theology," he pointed out evenly. "There's a reason for that; the college board knows who butters its bread. Well, what I'm proposing is a kick in the eye to that kind of self-serving orthodoxy." 

What you're proposing, Jed thought but did not say, is to ruin a man, to score a point on a professor you don't much like. Of course, Charlie was neither cruel nor stingy; if the hay-scale owner really did wind up in difficulties, he'd find some way to compensate him. But Jed knew that nothing would ever compensate the man for his self-respect, the pride and dignity rooted in self-sufficiency and providing for his family, all of which could be irreparably torn from him by a college boy with too much money. The trouble was, how to make Charlie understand it. 

Silently he rose and went to stand by the window alongside Charlie, who waited for his response. Charlie cared what he had to say, even if he often disregarded it. He did have that. 

Gazing out at the old wood-framed hay-scale, he suddenly realized something that would doubtless have occurred to him earlier, had his emotions been less obtrusive. He began to laugh. 

"What?" Charlie demanded, irritated. 

"The hay-scale won't be used 'til late summer," Jed told him, leaning against him and laughing uncontrollably against his shoulder, "The term will have been over for two months, and Laughlin will undoubtedly have failed you by then."

Charlie was stock-still for a moment, then he began to laugh as well. 

"There's an immutable economic law for you," Jed said, " I don't think even your millions can make hay grow out of season, Charlie." 

"Jedediah," Charlie said, "when you're right, you're right."

 


End file.
